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    May have to move from XP to vista... questions!

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Dan333SP, Feb 12, 2008.

  1. Dan333SP

    Dan333SP Notebook Consultant

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    I may be forced to buy a new laptop running Windows Vista for the first time after years on XP Pro, and I was wondering about my old files stored on my external hard drive. I could copy many of my games directly from one hard drive on one computer to another and they would work when both computers were running XP... but will this be the case with Vista? Or do I have to go rooting around and find the CDs of my old games that may not even be compatible with this OS?
     
    Dan333SP, Feb 12, 2008
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  2. Sub-D

    Sub-D Notebook Evangelist

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    You should be able to copy from the other HDD. I successfully used this method to move my FFVIII game files from my older XP desktop to my Vista laptop.
     
    Sub-D, Feb 12, 2008
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  3. JCMS

    JCMS Notebook Prophet

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    Yes it should work the same way.
     
    JCMS, Feb 12, 2008
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  4. ravenmorpheus

    ravenmorpheus Notebook Deity

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    It should work the same way but some of the older games may not work properly or at a acceptable level of perfomance, I found this with Neverwinter Nights - I tried playing it in Vista and it was like watching a slideshow even in the lowest settings, I run it in XP and I've got it on full settings and it runs fine.

    Also I have noticed when doing the opposite - transferring games from Vista to XP but having them on an external USB HDD that games such as Oblivion and Company of Heroes won't load at all, they seem to not be able to find certain registry entries and I get error messages saying I should re-install the games because they think the installation is corrupt (which is technically true because the registry entries are missing). Other games though such as Madden NFL 08 work fine in both Vista and XP despite not having any registry entries when run under XP - all my games have been installed under Vista and I haven't got around to re-installing them in XP...

    So it may be worth digging out your cd's anyway or dual booting XP and Vista ;)
     
    ravenmorpheus, Feb 15, 2008
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  5. The_Punisher

    The_Punisher Notebook Evangelist

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    I imported all my old files off a mobile HDD to my new Vista machine with zero problems. All my important files worked right away. Even my save games worked instantly. (I had expected some games to protest.) World in Conflict, HL2 (ep 1 and ep 2), C&C3 all worked and accepted the old save games.
     
    The_Punisher, Feb 15, 2008
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